The establishment of trust in online spaces happens in a very different way than it does in the real world. Without the visual clues and personal interaction we are forced to draw our conclusions of trustworthiness based solely upon the content, and context of a post, and perhaps a user profile. There are of course sites where we can assume a certain amount of credibility, the New York Times website is a good example of this. As a trusted news organization they stake their credibility and accuracy on the content of their articles and the same principles apply to both their internet and hard copy pieces. The reader can trust this site based on the organization that owns it. However, the comments on a site like this are a different story. They are generated by the readers and are open to opinion, bias, trolling, etc. I feel their are a few mechanisms we can use to establish trust among these areas on the internet. The content of the post can be very telling, is it well written? Does it offer citations? Does the author recognize counter-arguments or other perspectives? The more of these things it has, than the better chance the post has of being credible. Alternatively, a post that doesn't list sources, has a clear bias or objective and many grammatical errors should not be trusted. These same principles can be applied across many types of internet sites, be it a forum, blog, or comment thread on a news article or opinion piece. However, we must be aware that no matter what this isn't a face-to-face interaction and to be more critical than we might normally be when judging the trustworthiness of a post.
Overview
The establishment of trust in online spaces happens in a very different way than it does in the real world. Without the visual clues and personal interaction we are forced to draw our conclusions of trustworthiness based solely upon the content, and context of a post, and perhaps a user profile. There are of course sites where we can assume a certain amount of credibility, the New York Times website is a good example of this. As a trusted news organization they stake their credibility and accuracy on the content of their articles and the same principles apply to both their internet and hard copy pieces. The reader can trust this site based on the organization that owns it. However, the comments on a site like this are a different story. They are generated by the readers and are open to opinion, bias, trolling, etc. I feel their are a few mechanisms we can use to establish trust among these areas on the internet. The content of the post can be very telling, is it well written? Does it offer citations? Does the author recognize counter-arguments or other perspectives? The more of these things it has, than the better chance the post has of being credible. Alternatively, a post that doesn't list sources, has a clear bias or objective and many grammatical errors should not be trusted. These same principles can be applied across many types of internet sites, be it a forum, blog, or comment thread on a news article or opinion piece. However, we must be aware that no matter what this isn't a face-to-face interaction and to be more critical than we might normally be when judging the trustworthiness of a post.
History
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Opinion
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Future Trends?
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